


excelsior: a how-to

by enjolraes



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Canon, F/M, M/M, trc au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4650627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enjolraes/pseuds/enjolraes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Blue,” Ronan whispers one night, his voice shattered. “Blue, I can hear him.”</p><p>“It’s the streetlights,” Blue whispers back, feeling the pain wrack through her body again. She was an open wound. “They sound like bees.” </p><p>“No,” Ronan laughed, a jackal cry. “No, I hear him—saying all that ridiculously optimistic shit about living and searching and questing. It’s like he’s still here.”</p><p>“Excelsior,” Blue breathes, choking again.</p><p>“Onwards and upwards,” Ronan says, and then downs the rest of the bottle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	excelsior: a how-to

The streetlights hum at night, and it sounds like bees. Bees under tongues, bees in mouths, bees stinging freckle upon freckle upon freckle until there is less boy than bee. Blue keeps her faded tarot card in her pocket when she walks at night, like it’s more of a weapon than any can of mace or switchblade or smoking gun could possibly be. Even when it’s magic that sealed her fate, this fate. Magic that broke Cabeswater off from the rest of the world and let Noah fade into being obsolete and entrapped Adam and let Gansey die. Bees in breath. Every time Blue steps out of her and Ronan’s apartment, it’s bees swarming. She can always feel her heart catch in her throat, her lips quivering at the feel of her and Gansey’s first and only kiss. She thumbs her tarot card, that horrible reminder of what she’s lost; the aching, rising, pulsing, wanting talisman that did her much more harm than good. 

Ronan, after Gansey, became the sharpest version of Ronan that could possibly be. Blue is afraid to touch him some nights when they just sit together, in either of their beds— their need to be close and their need to cut off every contact with each other swirling around in the air like an unspoken tempest. Blue and Ronan have always been two sides of the same coin. It must be how they were the only two to walk away. Ronan had been blunted, easier, when Gansey was around. Now looking at him is like swallowing bleach. He looks like he could cut the world wide open with one lift of his finger. 

Neither of them dream, although this carries much more weight with Ronan than Blue. She takes the bottle away from him most of the time, cars honking and beeping in some sort of superficial turmoil. Blue has tried the swill he mixes together sometimes and spits it out in the sink. 

They barely talk—Ronan spends most of his time at the boxing gym down the corner in the noisy city, and Blue bounces around between psychics. It is impossible to bear it, her non-gift, but she figures that at least people could use her energy for good use rather than for death and destruction. It's exhausting, but Blue soldiers home through the perennial ache in her chest and Ronan patches up his bleeding wounds and both of them listen to those damn lights buzzing like bees and try desperately not to choke on their loss. 

“Blue,” Ronan whispers one night, his voice shattered. “Blue, I can hear him.”

“It’s the streetlights,” Blue whispers back, feeling the pain wrack through her body again. She was an open wound. “They sound like bees.” 

“No,” Ronan laughed, a jackal cry. “No, I hear him—saying all that ridiculously optimistic shit about living and searching and questing. It’s like he’s still here.”

“Excelsior,” Blue breathes, choking again.

“Onwards and upwards,” Ronan says, and then downs the rest of the bottle. “God. God, Blue, it never fucking stops hurting.”

Blue considers this, and then suddenly bridges the gap between them on the bed. Ronan is so sharp—a needle’s prick; a spinning wheel leading to death—but he sobs and heaves himself into her chest. She’s never seen Ronan, broken. He was once shattered and put back together in a way like a jigsaw puzzle with mismatched pieces and a picture that came out unfinished. But he was never like this—so wholly lost. 

“I don’t think it ever will,” Blue finally gets out, and then presses her hand to his monstrous one. In the light of the glowing billboards, flashing out ridiculous advertisements, and the rain that fell harshly against the window like it was trying to beat them straight through, his dark skin illuminates a deep magenta. Hers is softer—almost blue, but not quite. Just like she is almost Blue, but not quite. Both of them are ghosts with aimless energy, unfortunately given living parts. 

“I fight because it’s—it’s a high,” Ronan says suddently, and his hand clenches over hers. “I don’t do it because I want to, I just. I have to. I have to do something that makes me forget. Forget everything. Forget Gansey, forget Noah. Forget Adam.”

On Adam’s name, Ronan’s voice seems to split in two; diverge. “I have to,” he repeats, trying to convince Blue of something she constantly feels herself. 

“I work with psychics because I think if I can amplify the world just enough, another ley line will appear,” Blue begins, following a drop of that angry rain with her eyes. She squeezes them shut, opens them again. Her chest is knocking wildly, like some beast being awoken. “I think that maybe if I make things loud enough, I’ll hear him. But there’s just bees in the streetlights and dimmed voices and it seems somehow that the world has kept on turning in their wake, and it’s not fucking fair.” She spits the last few words, and Ronan silently hands her his bottle. She swigs and amazingly, amazingly, keeps it down. 

“How do we live,” Ronan begins, and then cuts himself off, cracking his knuckles like mini-gunshots. It sounds as if his knuckles should be smoking, skid marks left in their wake. “How do we live when so much has died.” It’s not a question, but Blue looks out the window, hoping for an answer anyways. She thinks of that first night in the graveyard, when Gansey first appeared, whispering that’s all there is. She thinks of their first trip to Cabeswater, the excitement and wonder and intrigue spreading through ever inch of their bodies. She thinks of Adam, elegant and questioning; of Noah, blurred and wonderful; of Gansey, swallowing the world as whole as he could before it turned the tides on him. She thinks of tarot cards and magical birds and sleeping kings and dreamed reality and all-consuming friendship. Of their love, unwavering, unbroken, untamed, even after death. 

“We think what they would want,” Blue says, her voice barely at a volume she can hear herself. But Ronan’s fingers tighten over hers. “We give energy. We stay good. We—” Blue’s breath catches. “We say excelsior, Ronan. Onwards and upwards. There’s always another quest.” 

Ronan shakes his head, emotionless. “Not without him.”

Blue pulls away, studying his dulled neon skin. His eyes aren’t glossed over, angry—they’re pulsing with the fire of times past, left behind in a valley of magic and secrets and legends. A shout heard from far away. 

Blue pushes her pointer finger into his chest. Her hair, long past her chin now—past her shoulders, straight and limp, falls over one cheek. She tucks it behind an ear, and presses the tip of her finger until she feels Ronan’s heartbeat. 

“Feel that? You’re still alive. So am I.” Blue places Ronan’s pointer over her own heartbeat. They sit like that for a moment, silent in that bated-breath solidarity. “We say excelsior,” Blue repeats, voice shaking. “Onwards and upwards.” 

Ronan crashes his hand away, the spell broken. They resume their position, hands intertwined; heartbeats knocking off-tempo. 

“I feel him here,” Ronan says finally, tapping at his own heartbeat. “He’s still alive, in there.”

Blue nods. “They all are.” 

The two of them sit in silence after that, watching the rain beat senseless patterns against their illuminated window. Blue works and Ronan boxes, but they sit together every night in Ronan’s bed and watch the sun fade from the sky. They say excelsior and they eventually do move onwards and upwards. But every time Blue walks the noisy New York City streets at night, she can still hear those bees buzzing. The nauseating, terrible hum, at the very least, their last-choice consolation prize, will never lay silent.

**Author's Note:**

> based loosely on this post. http://razorshapes.tumblr.com/post/81007033179/hedi-slimane
> 
> i am so sorry


End file.
